Accidental Peace

Running errands the other day, I dashed into the bank and weaved myself through a brass and leather-corded alleyway, getting in line behind a shiny haired man.
He turned and looked at me. I smiled and he opened his mouth as if to say something, then turned away.
Moments later, the teller called for the next in line and before going any further, he took one step back and whispered over his shoulder to me.
'You smell soooo good.'
I don't wear perfume, but lotions or potions made of jojoba, olive & essential oils. They feel good & any aromas that kick are just a bonus. The scents seem to change with my mood.
Silly me. I basked in this strangers comment & its' method of delivery, for days...
discovering that sometimes what feels good for our skin...
feels good to the spirit...

(Outsider Hippie Art, Accidental Peace, by Sister Sing)

An old, old house with dim smoky lighting, creaky wooden floors and a sign that hangs on the door 'See Bartender for Service.' Old, overstuffed leather furniture, pool tables, fireplaces, framed pictures in black and white...and a band.This old, old house had been converted to a Blues Club & if you didn't know it before coming, you soon figured it out.

I left my friend inside for just a minute to fetch something from my car. Tossing spare tires and boogie boards from side to side of my trunk I was startled with a 'Whatchoo huntin'?'
I looked up at a big ole smile... gold teeth all across the top & thin, tarnished & blackened roots exposed on the bottom.
I smiled back 'Oh, nothing really, something silly.'
'You leavin?'
'Nope.'
'You married? You gotta boyfriend?'
'What?'
'Yo, you here alone?'
'Nope,' closing my trunk.
'You married?'
'Yep.'
'You gotta boyfriend?'
'Yep.'
'Which one you here with?'
I smiled, as I headed back towards the door. 'Not saying.'
He broke out into a rich laughter...'Girl, you full of it, aintchya?'
'Yessir.'
'Don't be callin me sir now. My name is Chris & it's a pleasure to meet ya.'
'Hi Chris. I hope you have fun tonight.'
'Oh, I will. You can count on that girl!'

So, Chris, with his shiny gold-grill, his ill-fated bottom teeth & his big ole smile came back through the doors with me.
Chris danced, I danced...everyone was having fun enjoying the sound of Prince gone Blues...and the night traipsed on in good times.

After midnight, I heard the couple at the table beside us talking to Chris.
'I'm a dentist. What did you do to your teeth.'
'I gotta grill, caintcha see?'
'Well what about your bottom teeth?'
'Aw I gotta get them done.'
'I think you look scary...I'd be afraid of you if I saw you in the parking lot. Is that what you wanted?'
'What? Afraid of me?'
Her husband piped in at this point. 'I'd be afraid of you too.'
'Awman, cmon now'
'Seriously, you look poor and shady.'
The husband continued ...'and desperate'
'I ain't desperate now people. I got me a job at Lockheed. My teeth? My teeth do that to you? I'm getting the bottoms ones done, I said.'
'They make you look poor.'
'Well I am rich in my own rights woman.'
'No, we are rich.'

Shoo....

Before the night was over Chris & the husband got into a ruckus.
Maybe they were trying to figure out who would be next to get some new teeth.
I don't know.
I don't know why Chris had gold teeth, nor do I know what was up with his bottom ones.
I don't know why the dentist lady & her rich husband had to give their opinions.

But I do know that different folks define things differently...

She's an owner of a small boutique here in town and I was her patron... looking for a small special something, maybe a ring, for a dear girlfriend.
The shop keeper had large cat-like eyes that danced with laughter but sat with a thatched roof of deeply rooted frown lines.
I'm not really sure how it all happened, but one thing led to another & before I knew it, I knew the shop owner's story of life, love & loss...
We all have our stories, some more tragic than others. Although I would never say this to her because I know it is all relative, her's was none too unusual but something about it captivated me just the same ...
Husband of seventeen years fooling around with the receptionist ...
Busted by a paper trail of receipts to florists and day-spas, Japanese restaurants and Victoria Secrets.
I smiled & nodded, remembering how I found paper trails myself many moons ago.
She packed all of his stuff, tossed it in the yard, hired a pitbull of an attorney, took him to the cleaners and opened her little boutique.
I laughed...'Ok. Good for you! You're happy now, right?'
Ut-Oh.
I watched her furrows deepen.
She told me about her best friend. Her girlfriend since high school. And their final falling out...when she 'wiped her hands clean' of her.
Apparently this girlfriend always had a hard time recalling birthdays & even if she did, she wasn't big on making a to-do over them.
Post-divorce, this proved to be fatal to their friendship.
The shopkeeper was so very devastated by her girlfriends lack of thoughtfulness that she completely wrote her off.
When the friend called the Saturday after her birthday to wish her a happy day, she hung up on her...and hadn't accepted her calls since.
Doing the math, I figured at 42 this woman had been a dear friend for 25 or more years.
My jaw hit the floor.
One of my own best friends has been of my world for about this long and she too, imho, is sensitive about birthdays and such... but I cannot imagine her ever completely wiping her hands clean of me should I forget to acknowledge her birthday on the precise day.
She's my friend...one of my best friends. She knows me.
She knows I am not good with keeping up with the time of the day, the date of the month & the day of the week. She knows that I love & adore her everyday...even if we don't speak everyday
I couldn't help but share my take on life, love & friendship with the shopkeeper.
That was over a year ago.
Anytime, I go into her shop, she smiles big & hugs me and I usually leave with some little gift.

But I saw her out the other night, in faxt, the same day I last visited her shop... out of her element, out of her shop.
She was walking into a store as I was walking out and I saw her before she saw me.
I smiled big & when she matched eyes with me... her furrow didn't break.
She looked right at me...at me smiling, and kept on frowning and then looked through me.
It was obvious she didn't recognize me outside of her shop, which is ok.

What struck me as tragically sad was that she wasn't open, much less reciprocating, to my smile and I knew...
it wasn't just me, it was everyone...anyone.

And my heart broke for her.
I knew at that moment that when she had thrown her husbands clothes in the yard, she kept all the negative stuff inside and when she had wiped her hands clean of her friend, she had closed such an important door to life...

May we all be open to smiling..

Strangers on the Black Asphalt

Sometimes standing on the black asphalt and sometimes sitting, bent at the knees where he rested his elbows, he held onto his cardboard sign.
Sometimes I would see him walking up the overgrown hill behind the gas station using his makeshift sign as an umbrella in the rain.

Oliver once found one of his old discarded signs and brought it home to frame.

'Veteran. Homeless. Need Heart Surgery. Will Work Fore Money.'

Oliver said that the extra 'E' in 'Fore' , the water-logged cardboard dried by the sun & the roughly torn edges was an artistic reflection of our American culture.

One day the Sheriff came knocking on the door. He wanted to know when we had last seen the old man with the sign. It had been an unusual cold & snowy spell, so it had been a few days.
Shortly thereafter the maintenance man told me that he had found the homeless man in the electrical shed & he had apparently died of a heart attack.

Nowadays, there is a man who frequents my exit ramp with his dog & his cardboard sign. Several months ago, I took him a collar and a leash. More recently, I passed a doggies sweater and collapsible canvas dog food bowl to him. I could have taken him many more dog supplies, but instead I have a cardboard box in my trunk, within which I keep a forty pound bag of food and a scoop.

I have seen him...
crawl the hill and into the woods behind the gas station.
I could give him a lot more.
But to give him more than he can carry would be to give him a burden.
Sometimes the weight of one's own shoulder's is heavy enough...

Rockstar, Flossie & Pumpkin Butt

'Excuse me, Flossie!'
'Hey. Rapunzel'
'Alright, Twiggy'
'What else Skinny?'
and more traditionally...
'Thank you Dear'
'Sure, Darling'
'No problem Love'
'Here you go, Honey'
'Okay, Sweetheart.'
'Thanks, Angel'

Terms of endearment bestowed upon me from strangers.
Doesn't matter, baby-love.
I'll answer to anything.

I guess in a more traditional than my faded Levis' who-could-be-bothered with curling the hair much less the eye lashes world, 'Maam' would be the appropriate & respectful term of endearment for a stranger to use. Sure enough SweetPea, 'Maam' doesn't really seem appropriate over here... but I'll answer to it too.

A mother silently pushed her terrible two-something toddler through the store, screaming every bit of the way. Each aisle seemed to be sheer torture for the young boy. Momma pushed on. After about 40 minutes of pretended peace, Momma pushed her buggy to the counter to check out with screaming child strapped in.

'Hey Pumpkin! Why are you crying? You have the coolest red truck on your shirt! You gotta like that!'

A sniffle, then back to the tearless screams and an eye-cut from Momma...'Well, for one thing! He don't like being called pumpkin!'

Smiling back at scrowling Momma...'Hahaha, welllllllll...... let him live to be my age and he'll realize there are a lot worse things to be called.'

A term of endearment, whether we personally like it or not, is still a term of endearment....right, rockstar?

On the Curb of the Publix Shopping Lot...

I sat with my weeks worth of groceries, grateful for once that I had no butter, sour cream, milk or ice cream. The sun was cooking down on me, perhaps amplified by the black tar-top lot, and I knew that all of those things would perish... I could have sat in my car to contemplate what to do, but it too was black and as hot as the dickens.
So I just sat on the curb with my bag of potatoes, box of pasta & can of mushrooms...
smoking, contemplating, waiting...
For what, I did not know.
The hood was up on my car, as if it were a flag waving some friendly tow truck safely over. But I knew that would never happen. Roadside protection had already told me that I had used the maximal allowance for a twelve month period.
Nope. No more tows for almost 3 more months.
So, I just sat there...
smoking, contemplating & waiting....
I watched people come and go...
Green aprons pushing squeaky wheels over the black top and to the gold Volvo's, sleek white Mercedes, big F-150's, the spotless Cadillac's and the little black BMW's.
Green aprons loading up bags of fresh fruits and vegetables and huge slabs of meat and bag load after bag load of wonderful, healthy food.
Green aprons plopping twelve packs of Heinekin and bottles of champagne into trunks.
Green aprons dropping preservative-rich frozen insta-meals and gossip magazines and Pantene into tiny little trunks.
Green aprons sweating and never accepting a tip & never noticing me noticing them.
With my rump on the curb and my flip-flopped feet on the black top, I looked over my shoulder...
Grass. Beautiful, green grass. Thick. Healthy. Cool.
I stretched my legs out before me & allowed myself to just lay back, become one with soft cool earth.
Staring into the sky, my mind bounced & ricocheted around my own little world.
Chinga- Ching - Ching.
The rythym of the sound drawing closer ...
Chinga - Ching - Ching
Chinga - Ching - Ching
Long dirty blonde hair in dread locks.
Chains from front pockets of baggy, faded & holey blue jeans to the back pocket.
Hemp in the form of a braided hat and a well-worn necklace.
'A song for my fair lady.'
'I haven't any money for you.'
'No worries, my lady.'

Remembering another moment of enjoying the 'eternal now'....
"Chinga-Ching-Ching" to the profound strangers in our lives that make a difference and may never even know it...

Do Whatever It Is You Want

With shiny, thin, red lips rumpled over her small, yellowed teeth she asked 'Can you help me?'
'Of course, sweetheart, what do you need?'
'Heh-heh-heh. Well, i don't really need anything. I'm too old for that. When I was young & had needs I put them on the backburner to take care of those around, especially that son-of-a-bitch. Ah, that's alright, I didn't really think anything I wanted was ever a need anyway.'
'Hahaha, okay honey, then what do you want?'
'I want you to help me get that rug. I always wanted a rug & that son-of-a-bitch never wanted one, never would let me have one...said they were dirt traps.'
'Okay, well, I will be more than happy to get it for you.'

I followed her, with her hunched back & darting, dancing blue eyes over to the mountain of rugs. She had picked out a 8 x 10 persian wool rug. It was big, thick & tightly tufted...very plush. I had her help guide it, as we rolled it down from the mountain of rolled textiles & onto my right shoulder & then told her to steer clear. It weighed a ton. As I scaffolded my way through the store with it, I asked if she had someone at home who could offload it for her.
'Yeah, that son-of-a-bitch's bastard son. He's forty...he can do it...if he's not too doped up.'

En route to her car & back she told me about the 'son-of-a-bitch.' He was her spouse for almost seventy years. They had four children. When their children were all but grown, he had a child with another woman. As this childs' mother was in & out of the hospital for drug & alcohol use, the child was in & out of their home.

Her husband was verbally and physically abusive to her until he became too old & too tired to beat her down anymore. His death came slowly & he required much care in his dying years & he was too stubborn and demanding to allow anyone to care for him but his wife.

'Well, he loved you dearly, I'm sure, he just didn't express it in a healthy manner.'

'I thought it was love. For nearly seventy years, I thought it was love. It wasn't honey, he just used me. I was his care-giver, the mother to his children, his maid & servant. I now know that man didn't know the meaning of love.'

'Well, he defined it differently for sure. At least he provided well for you & the children, right?'

'Well, the house has been paid off for over thirty years now. He changed jobs, like I changed the linens. Outside of the house, I was hung out to dry just like those linens & I almost lost the house too '

'Oh my'

'Yeah, what savings we had, he spent. Then he went & co-signed on credit cards & car loans for that bastard son. By the time he died, that boy had over 80 grand in debt with my husbands name attached to it all & that boy, well he just quit paying. Them collectors came like bees on honey when that son-of-a-bitch husband of mine died. I had to hire me an attorney just to keep the house & that cost me thousands of dollars. I thought I was gonna be homeless. I had to start working at the daycare. I still do & that's why I can afford to get me this here rug. I work 5 hours a day, five days a week.'

'Well, I hope you enjoy this rug plenty then. You have worked hard for it'

'Oh I will. I lived my whole life with dirt. Anytime I tried to sweep it up, it just gets in my face & all over everything. I think that with this here rug, at least the dirt can get buried. That son-of-a-bitch never wanted me to have no rug. He was nothing but a liar, a cheat & a thief. If I'd known 50 years ago what I know today, I woulda got me a job at the daycare back then & a rug too.'

Her eyes drifted over the vehicle, through our small lot & to somewhere beyond. 'I woulda left him, but I didn't know....I just didn't know. I just didn't know any better. You married, honey?'

'No Ma'am.' 'You would be proud of me, I just divorced a liar, a cheat, a thief.'

I know there are multiple sides to every story.
This woman's resentment was undeniable. Regardless of where the blame belongs or where it falls, the bottom line is that she was eaten up with anger & resentment. As much as she resents her husbands infidelity, instability & abusiveness... it was apparent to me that she, in fact, resented herself & her own choices. I remember reading once somewhere that what makes old, crotchety people act with anger is reflection upon a life lived without going for what they want. In my opinion, this woman knew 50 years ago, maybe nearly 70 years ago, that she wanted out... that she wanted something more or at least, something different and she never acted on those wants.

All this being said...if there is something you want in life...go for it.
'I hope you enjoy this life plenty. You have worked hard for it.'